Published byStanford Medicine

Over on the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford blog, writer Julie Greicius highlights an elective program at Stanford’s medical school that fosters personal connections between prenatal patients and Stanford medical students. The course is designed to offer doctors-in-training the opportunity, early on, to be on the other side of patient care. Emily Ballenger, who’s expecting twins later this month, and medical student Sunny Kummar have partnered up through the program, with Sunny offering extra support by attending prenatal appointments, the babies’ birth, and the first few pediatric appointments.

Relationship building is fundamental to patient-centered care, and with this program the doctor-to-be has the opportunity to identify with the patient experience in his or her supportive role. Without the pressures of being in the medical provider role, the student has the opportunity to practice listening, empathy and compassion.

The value of programs such as this is that they shift the paradigm of the traditional-doctor patient relationship. The scale is tipped from being purely clinical to one focused more on listening and learning from each other. The patient, the doctor-in-training, and their future patients all stand to benefit.

Ballenger’s obstetrician is Susan Crowe, MD, who has long supported the program. “I encourage my patients to participate because it’s a win for future care of obstetric and pediatric patients,” she says in the piece. “I really believe that the patient-centered care we strive for can be better achieved if we train our physicians to really learn from and listen to our patients themselves. One of the biggest strengths of the program is that the patient perspective comes first. It sets the groundwork for that way of thinking in terms of training our medical students.”

Medical schools around the country offer similar programs, recognizing that it’s the human connection that initially draws young doctors to medicine, and Stanford has offered this program since at least 1991. The course directors are Yasser El Sayed, MD, obstetrician-in-chief at Stanford Children’s Health, and Janelle Aby, MD, clinical associate professor of pediatrics.

Jen Baxter is a freelance writer and photographer. After spending eight years working for Kaiser Permanente Health plan she took a self-imposed sabbatical to travel around South East Asia and become a blogger. She enjoys writing about nutrition, meditation, and mental health, and finding personal stories that inspire people to take responsibility for their own well-being. Her website and blog can be found at www.jenbaxter.com.